Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

370

DISABILITY

DIRECT INTEREST

DIRECTORS. Persons appointed or elected according to law, authorized to man age and direct the affairs of a corporation or company. The whole of the directors col lectively form the board of directors. Whar ton. DIRECTORY. A provision in a statute, rule of procedure, or the like, is said to be directory when it is to be considered as a mere direction or instruction of no obliga tory force, and involving no invalidating consequence for its disregard, as opposed to an imperative or mandatory provision, which must be followed. The general rule is that the prescriptions of a statute relating to the performance of a public duty are so far direct ory that, though neglect of them may be punishable, yet it does not affect the validity of the acts done under them, as in the case of a statute requiring an officer to prepare and deliver a document to another officer on or before a certain day. Maxw. Interp. St. 330, et seq. DIRECTORY TRUST. Where, by the terms of a trust, the fund is directed to be vested in a particular manner till the period arrives at which it is to be appropriated, this is called a "directory trust." It is dis tinguished from a discretionary trust, in which the trustee has a discretion as to the management of the fund. 10 3Terg. 272. DIRIBITORES. In Roman law. Of ficers who distributed ballots to the people, to be used in voting. Tayl. Civil Law, 192. DIRIMENT IMPEDIMENTS. In can on law. Absolute bars to marriage, which would make it null ab initio. DISABILITY. The want of legal abil ity or capacity to exercise legal rights, either special or ordinary, or to do certain acts with proper legal effect, or to enjoy certain privi leges or powers of free action. At the present day, disability is generally used to indicate an incapacity for the full enjoyment of ordinary legal rights; thus married women, per sons under age, insane persons, and felons convict are said to be under disability. Sometimes the term is used in a more limited sense, as when it signifies an impediment to marriage, or the re straints placed upon clergymen by reason of their spiritual avocations, Mozley & Whitley. Disability is either general or special; the former when it incapacitates the person for the performance of all legal acts of a general class, or giving to them their ordinary legal effect; the latter when it debars him from one specific act.

DIBECT INTEREST. A direct inter est, such as would render the interested par ty incompetent to testify in regard to the matter, is an interest which is certain, and not contingent or doubtful. A matter which is dependent alone on the successful prosecu tion of an execution cannot be considered as uncertain, or otherwise than direct, in this sense. 1 Ala. 65. DIRECT INTERROGATORIES. On the taking of a deposition, where written in terrogatories are framed, those put by the party calling the witness are named "direct interrogatories," (corresponding to the ques tions asked on a direct examination,) while those put by the adverse party are called "cross-interrogatories." DIRECT LINE. Property is said to de scend or be inherited in the direct line when it passes in lineal succession; from ancestor to son, grandson, great-grandson, and so on. DIRECT TAX. A direct tax is one which is demanded from the very persons who, it is intended or desired, should pay it. In direct taxes are those which are demanded from one person, in the expectation and in tention that he shall indemnify himself at the expense of another. Mill, Pol. Econ. Taxes are divided into "direct," under which designation would be included those which are as sessed upon the property, person, business, in come, etc., of those who are to pay them, and "in direct, " or those which are levied on commodities before they reach the consumer, and are paid by those upon whom they ultimately fall, not as taxes, but as part of the market price of the commodity. Cooley, Tax'n, 6. Historical evidence shows that personal proper ty, contracts, occupations, and the like, have never been regarded as the subjects of direct tax. The phrase is understood to be limited to taxes on land and its appurtenances, and on polls 8 Wall. 533. DIRECTION. 1. The act of governing; management; superintendence. Also the body of persons (called "directors") who are charged with the management and adminis tration of a corporation or institution. 2. The charge or instruction given by the court to a jury upon a point of law arising or involved in the case, to be by them ap plied to the facts in evidence. 3. The clause of a bill in equity containing the address of the bill to the court. DIRECTOR OF THE MINT. An of ficer having the control, management, and superintendence of the United States mint and its branches. He is appointed by the president, by and with the advice and con sent of the senate.

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